Nunavut federal election candidates to debate in Iqaluit on Thursday
Debate is scheduled from 1 to 3 p.m., will be broadcast on CBC Radio
All three Nunavut election candidates say they will take part in a debate on CBC Radio on Thursday. From left are Conservative James Arreak, New Democrat Lori Idlout and Liberal Kilikvak Kabloona. (File photos)
All three of Nunavut’s federal election candidates will participate in a debate Thursday, hosted by CBC Radio.
The Liberal, Conservative and NDP campaigns confirmed to Nunatsiaq News that their candidates will take part in the in-person debate being held in Iqaluit. The broadcast will run from 1 to 3 p.m. in English and Inuktitut, CBC spokesperson Tanya Koivusalo said in an email.
Two candidates — Kilikvak Kabloona of the Liberals and Lori Idlout from the NDP —are also set to take part in a forum organized at the Qajuqturvik Community Food Centre on April 22 at 6 p.m.
Conservative candidate James Arreak will be away in Kitikmeot that week, he said in an email to Nunatsiaq News.
The theme and format of the forum have not been announced yet.
Less than two weeks remain in the three-way campaign for Nunavut’s only seat in Parliament with the election scheduled for April 28.
Cost of living has soared out of control due to the amount of taxpayer money handed out to people here in NU.
Regardless of party, I will not vote for the one who continues to beat the drum of handouts. We have seen in real-time exactly what distributing a large sum of free money to people does, If you’re a long-term thinker and you see all this JP money resulting in a pretty significant increase in prices at the grocery store you know that in the long-term those % increases will significantly outpace any money received, be it because the program stops eventually or you no longer have kids to receive such benefit.
We have limited supply runs, and if demand increases because there’s more money to purchase such things, its going to be an easy move for stores to continue to increase prices, and vary rarely do we see the Co-op or Northern reduce prices.
It appears, not just for JP but there’s rarely a long-term consideration to what injecting all this free money does, both to the motivation of people or the long-term price implications of products, or its impact on those that would receive no such benefit.
I find it a simple, buy votes , buy support tactic because there’s little long-term or critical thought by people when they’re offered a bunch of “free” money.
The consequences of all these handouts has and will continue to be catastrophic. There is no incentive to work anymore unless it is a value that has been instilled in you.
It has become better now to be unemployed, living in free public housing, collecting Social Assistance Payments, tax-free Canada Child Benefit payments, tax-free Inuit Child First benefits, and GST rebates.
For a family of 4, assuming two children under 4:
Public housing is a tax-free ~$40,000/year benefit
SA payments are a taxable $22,080/year benefit, about $20,000 after tax.
CCB benefits are a tax-free $15,574/year benefit
ICI vouchers are a tax-free $18,000/year benefit
GST rebates are a tax-free $1,038/year benefit
That’s $94,612/year AFTER tax, which is the equivalent of about $135,000 pre-tax income.
For perspective, if you had 2 adults working full-time, 7.5 hour days, they would each have to make $35/hour to have a total combined income of $136,500.
It’s absolutely brutal what’s going on, because the people that are trying to go out and work are living with less than those that stay at home.
This is exactly it. We have created incentive for families to do nothing but create kids and do nothing else. We are see the consequences of it already. Horrendous school attendance rates, by far the youngest mothers in Canada, more kids on average per household in Canada, lowest labour force participation rates (not to be confused with unemployment statistics).
And why would you work. Is life going to be significantly better at a 35 dollar or 45 dollar per hour job, let alone a swamper, a water truck driver, a basic mine worker, etc. Probably not but that’s because so much is already given for “free”.
NU is creating the most destructive cycle a group of people can be on. Full dependency, and a people with zero motivation to succumb to horrible self-destructive habits that can be engaged in all day long due to not having to worry about keeping things afloat by being responsible.
The cost of living went up because of inflation caused by the economic fall out of the COVID-19 pandemic and was a problem globally.
The “handouts” you speak of were a measure to address the impact of this inflation and not the cause of it.
It takes you really having your head in the sand or just having no short term memory to think that the liberal relief measures were the cause of inflation and an increase in the cost of living.
I’d rather give money to individuals who are poor and not working than another cent to big corporations. We always have money and will to subsidize corporations and businesses through tax cuts for the ultra wealthy, but god forbid we make life more affordable for the unemployed, disabled or working poor.
Yes inflation impacted food via COVID from government over pumping money into the economy. We saw that increase. We then saw a secondary increase once JP hit NU.
How can you conclude that COVID, and government monetary policy which was essentially to print money and quantitatively ease the economy via interest rate adjustments resulted in the inflation, but then simply say yeah but handing out more money for spending totally didn’t / isn’t having an impact.
You can’t have your cake and eat it too here. Quite clearly JP resulted in a significant secondary rise in prices. That is just basic economics, give out money to people , restrict them to spend on certain things which have limited supply since its all flown in, demand rises, supply does not. Prices will go up. This is very rudimentary stuff.
Dismissing increases to covid is blatant ignorance. Everyone and their dog has seen what jp has done to store prices this past year.
Now let’s ignore the impact on price. What are incentive are we creating in NU. You don’t need to work, you don’t need to go to school, you don’t need to do anything besides make babies.
You can have programs like JP if the net posative in the end is greater than the expense. But in this case it’s just drive up costs that will last forever and you don’t have to do anything to get the money besides have babies.
If it was tied to training for relevant employable skills, or some type of community service or something productive it would have actual longer lasting value. Not short term dependency.
We’re creating dependency, not creating motivation or work ethic.
I live in Nunavut and regularly buy my groceries here and didn’t notice an increase in food prices after the Inuit Child First Initiative vouchers were given out.
Actual community advocates and healthcare workers noticed a decrease in food insecurity and better nutrition in the individuals they served and programs they ran. There are news stories in Pangnirtung and Igloolik that speak to the positive effects of the program.
It’s not possible for a jurisdiction the size of Nunavut or even Canada to do that much to food prices by handing out money because of the size of our population. These prices are mostly set by global trends and even with an increase in consumption, we are a drop in the bucket of overall demand.
The bigger risk to global food chains and the cost of everything is climate change and it’s impact on crops because of droughts and major weather events.
It increased dramatically, what are you talking about? Not only has it come up at almost very RIA AGM, NTI AGM, made the news, etc. its right in your face. To say it has not is a lie if defence of a system that promotes non-productivity and and a continuation of a perpetual cycle of dependency, and poverty.
The rest of your comment makes no sense, the reason price manipulation can so easily happen in small towns by NWCO or the Co-op is because its so small and injecting that much money into a small place makes its easy to just blanket increase prices in NU. It is the single most easy place to manipulate prices because those stores are not serving large populations, give that many people money in town you just propped up buying power significantly for those small communities and thus its incredibly easy to just increase the price.
First off all, while there were concerns raised about the northern stores inflating prices, there has been no evidence that they did so, despite NTI committing to monitor the situation. Again, I personally didn’t actually notice my grocery shopping expenses going up.
Northern stores gouging Nunavummiut isn’t inflation, it’s just predatory behavior (it also points to the need to better regulate the private market – aka more socialism). It’s telling that the CPC doesn’t actually have a plan to tackle grocery price fixing, and his campaign manager has ties major grocery stores. Prepare to spend more on groceries, not less, and without as many social programs if the Conservatives get elected.
A person’s “Productivity” isn’t something that gets better if you starve and punish them for being poor, despite how much conservatives believe this is the case.
Empathy a social safety net, and ensuring that people have the things they need to live is the benchmark of a civil society. There is a reason that there is less homelessness, better quality of life and a stronger economy in socialist countries such as Sweden and Norway and it isn’t because they created a culture of “dependence” but a culture of support and compassion.
It means that a unit of currency buys fewer goods and services than it did previously. Increasing money supply increases inflation. This is a pretty well known cause and effect. “When there’s more money circulating in the economy, there’s more demand for goods and services, potentially pushing prices upward.”
Sweden and Norway and those countries you so readily reference have high quality of living because they have extremely high labour-force participation rates meaning everyone is working, vastly higher than Canada and some of the highest in the world.
That’s because the big Northern grocery srores subsidy they receive from the government is just going into the shareholders pockets, when it should be lowering prices.
We shouldn’t be a seeing increases in prices at all!
You have extremely low population towns at the mercy of 2 stores. Some only one. You then introduce money that can only be specifically spent on such things they carry. The free money injected into the local economy is additional extra spending power but the buyer has no real options minimizing their ability to diversify purchasing.
This creates an environment that is one of the most easily manipulated of any other. The stores hold almost all the power. The rest of NU does not get amazon either anymore nor would jp be eligible there anyways.
You’re at the mercy of the two stores who most clearly have taken advantage of the extra spending power by increasing prices.
Before ICFI, 4 litre of bagged milk in Iqaluit was $8.99, after the introduction of ICFI, price was between $10.99 and $12.29 (this is just for the 2 main store, northmart and ventures). It is probably higher at the other 2 smaller stores. And on top of that there are still so many people begging for food on facebook when this program was still running. They are looking for snacks, juice, basically junk food and leftovers. They don’t want /can’t cook. The handout must stop, it is not “free” money, it comes from the rest of us who are contributing to the economy.
Check out my shares in Northerst company, 175 percent raise in Share price increase in last 5 years , keep the welfare programs up there going, I will retire in 5 years, thanks liberals.
If you can’t hack life up here and it’s ppl. US is accepting Trump like ppl.
Cost of living went up because of the Carbon tax was put on everything and the Liberals doubling the National Debt.
Cost of housing across Canada went up because we are only building 200,000 new homes a year while the Liberals are allowing 500,000 plus immigrants in the the country every year.
With all these new people in our country it is putting significant strain on our public services such as health care, housing, etc. We see it with long wait lines at Emergency, we see it in the job market, more people means more people competing for jobs and there fore will take a lower wage because it is still 10 times higher than what thye would make in their home country.
Which language? Inuit, French or English?
People should just vote for the party that’s most likely to win. Nunavut can’t afford to have it’s single seat lost to a party that isn’t forming the new government, we need a voice that will be heard
I don’t agree, I am free to choose.
While her experience might seem promising, her leadership at NTI lacked tangible results for Inuit communities. This raises concerns about her ability to deliver meaningful change if elected.
For Inuit communities, strong leadership is crucial to address pressing issues like housing, healthcare, and education. If Kabloona’s track record at NTI doesn’t inspire confidence, it might be worth considering alternatives that prioritize actionable change and accountability. How will you connect with the inuit who speak only inuktitut?
If I have to pay more in taxes so someone has food to eat, I don’t care. That’s what taxes are for. We all do better as a country when we look after the weakest or poorest among us.
Just look at every quality of life metric between our country and our European counterparts that have more of a social safety net. They are doing better by every standard and are happier and live longer.
You just need to look at the USA to see what the end result of the libertarian/ ultra conservative mindset gets you: a broken economy, skyrocketing cost of living and fascism.
Yes, however they are not actually the poorest, its just lack of motivation to do anything. This is different from someone who just lost their job with no life savings and ending up on the street. This is the feds giving so much free money to a population that it does not incentivized people to work to get out of the welfare cycle. As the other posted said, family of 4 on welfare, with 94K annual “free money”, So yes, enough is enough!
But that is not what JP is. JP is given to any beneficiary with a kid regardless of household income. There is no requisite to get it, have a child. You could be from a wealthy family, have dual income, it does no matter. Your tax money could be going and is going to people doing vastly better than yourself.
Its also going to those who CHOOSE to not participate in the labour force despite being totally capable individuals.
I think there’s a huge misconception around it. Its administration is laughable at best, or sad if you’re a tax payer.
Agreed, I sure hope we pick the right dog in this dog race.
It certainly will be a shame to elect and NDP member again because they do not have a chance at winning a Federal election.
If the Liberals win I hope we elected a Liberal and visa versa, If the Conservatives win, I sure hope we elect Conservative. It will be in Nunavut’s best interest to have a way to talk to the Minister’s and have our voice herd in caucus meetings.